There are increasing concerns amongst poverty campaigners that the BBC has already picked a side over George Osborne’s desired £10bn cuts to welfare spending.

One campaigner at a prominent charity emailed this blog to point out that some parts of the BBC have been presenting Osborne’s belief that an extra £10bn must be cut as a necessity rather than an option.

In fact the LibDems are threatening to block the cuts unless the Conservatives start targeting the wealthy for contributions toward reducing the deficit. (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/uk-britain-clegg-idUKBRE88K1B620120921?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews)

Newsnight in particular has been singled out. In a report on benefits freeze by Allegra Stratton last month, she wrote:

The government needs to find £10bn of extra savings in the welfare budget.

This is identical to Osborne’s own position that, “If we maintain the same rate of reductions in departmental saving, we would need to make savings in welfare of £10 billion pounds by 2016.”

Whether or not the rate of reduction needs maintaining is a matter that is entirely up for debate.

Earlier this week Nick Clegg objected to Osborne’s plans – saying the shortfall in funding must come from the richest rather than the most vulnerable.

Allegra Stratton came under fire recently when a single mother was wrongly represented in a different Newsnight segment on benefits claimants.

Poverty campaigners have told Liberal Conspiracy that they have been watching the BBC’s coverage with growing dismay, and some are on the verge of making complaints.

The BBC may be “undermining the democratic process” one source sais. “Beyond the blatant pushing of a particular agenda within a particular faction of a one of the party’s in the coalition, there’s a world of other stories out there than run counter to the ‘fairness’ narrative that is being used by those pushing for these cuts.”

About the author
Sarah McAlpine is a News Editor at Liberal Conspiracy, and volunteer Co-Editor at www.womensviewsonnews.org. Raging Feminist. She likes Politics, Smashing Patriarchy & Animal Videos - though not necessarily in that order.· Other posts by Sarah McAlpine

Reader comments

And yet the BBC remains the target for many on the Right. This trend of apparent appeasement will fail and risks losing friends of all political hues. I was unfortunate enough to catch part of last week’s Moral Maze on Radio 4 to hear the attacks from Portillo and some other cranks. There is no doubt they would like to hand all of our public service broadcasting to Murdoch.

Can we put an end to these silly Daily Mail-esque headlines please? It gives the impression that the BBC is deliberately helping Osborne, which is of course nonsense. Inserting the word “unwittingly” would be better.

Post-Hutton, the BBC has been ‘frit’ when it comes to challenging the official narrative in just about every area of policy, irrespective of the party in power. They have become – to slightly rework the words of Carla Lane of all people – rabbits trapped in headlights, but rabbits who know on which side their lettuce is buttered.

One also has to remember that the BBC is, essentially, the state broadcaster. As such, it is under effective control by the same echelons of society as own and staff the print media.

Always bear in mind as well the power that particular words can have in setting the tone of reportage, and hence in creating impressions in the reader/listener/viewer. We saw this spectacularly once again only last week in the UK media’s coverage – such as it was – of the presidential election in Venezuela. In report after report, in the Telegraph, the Indy (sic) and the Grundiad, Capriles was described with such words as ‘moderate’, ‘centre-right’ and ‘pragmatic’, whilst Chavez was a ‘bombastic’, ‘ideological’ ‘radical’.

‘In fact the Lib-Dems are threatening to block the cuts unless the Conservatives start targeting the wealthy for contributions toward reducing the deficit… Earlier this week Nick Clegg objected to Osborne’s plans — saying the shortfall in funding must come from the richest rather than the most vulnerable.’

The Judge hits the nail on the head, the BBC well knows who has the power to shred the license fee and behaves accordingly.

‘benefits mother’ when, in fact, she had a job?

I believe that framing was entirely the point, she was working while also claiming her entitled benefits, and yet the term ‘benefits mother’ is one of abuse. Funny how turkeys can be persuaded that Christmas is right and just…

What’s up? As part of its public service operations, it’s the BBC’s job to explain government policy and to report any ensuing national debate. When TB was PM, the BBC was all in favour of ever closer union in Europe because that is what he believed in. There is no public service obligation upon the BBC to mount a campaign against the incumbent government.

The government’s top-down reorganisation of the NHS is hugely complicated so news editors likely worried about whether listeners would stay tuned in to detailed explanations. But the BBC did report critical commentary in the editorials of the British Medical Journal and by the Kings Fund – which is where I first learned about them.

The position of Lord Patten within the BBC is apparent for all to see. The BBC has become a national disgrace that has lost all impartiality and actively campaigned for the Tories in the pre-election reporting in 2010. I for one will not be paying my licence fee until Patten is removed from his present post.

Chaise: “It’s not that complicated to add ‘claims that’ or ‘according to’ to a few sentences.”

This is what the editorial in the British Medical Journal was saying in January 2011: “What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad. . . ”

In an earlier debate here, I was saying that one of my main concerns was the scrapping of the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) which acted as intermediaries in complaints about GPs and about hospitals.

Who are patients to complain to when consortiums of local GPs take over those roles from the PCTs? The PCTs also monitored treatments and outcomes so we got this kind of alarm signal: “Amputation rates among diabetics showed one of the most striking variations. Data revealed that the amputation rate for patients with Type 2 diabetes in the South West (3 in 1000 patients) is almost TWICE the rate in the South East. The Charity Diabetes UK was also concerned that the data showed less than half those with the disease (Types 1 and 2) had received nine key healthcare checks.”

Frankly, all that is well below the knowledge horizon of most, in my experience. Most patients have no knowledge about PCTs and what the PCTs did to question the downstream repercussions of the NHS reorganisation.

From experience, most local debate tends to be about the consequences of the requirement that the NHS has to make £20 billions efficiency savings on a NHS budget of just over £105 billions. People tune out when the discussion relates to changes in the NHS administrative structures – even though those changes can be very important. Most don’t expect to need to make complaints about healthcare treatment and monitoring treatment outcomes just seems all very bureaucratic, even though it’s essential for uncovering gliches and postcode lotteries.

The continuous presence of mass unemployment since it was reintroduced in the 1970s has allowed politicians of all 3 main parties to slowly turn public opinion away from blaming unemployment on government to blaming it on the unemployed. Some people may remember Chancellor Norman Lamont`s notorious statement in parliament (on 6 May 1991), that “Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying.”.
http//www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1991-05-16/Orals-1.html
Few will be aware that the BBC published an editorial on its website in September 1998 entitled “Why unemployment has to rise” where it told readers that:
“the Bank of England recognises that, however painful, unemployment has to rise for the government to hit its inflation target. And the bank is determined to reach this goal.”.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/179455.stm
Now that the excuse of inflation is currently unavailable all 3 parties are using the newly-discovered deficit as a pretext to make cuts, the result of which was inevitable – mass unemployment – and that was the intended outcome. Wages are falling accordingly.

Jim Callagham as PM said this in a speech to the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool in 1976:

“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employ­ment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of infla­tion into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment.”http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=174

In 1997, Labour government put legislation through Parliement making the Bank of England responsible for maintaining a steady rate of inflation:

“Setting monetary policy – deciding on the level of short-term interest rates necessary to meet the Government’s inflation target – is the responsibility of the Bank. In May 1997 the Government gave the Bank operational independence to set monetary policy by deciding the short-term level of interest rates to meet the Government’s stated inflation target – currently 2%.”http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Pages/corepurposes/monetary_stability.aspx

The BBC had no responsibility for either of those policies except to report them as a public service and to explain the rationale.

Lets be honest each time labour brought out a green paper on welfare reforms, the BBC brought out a program on benefits cheats, then when it brought out a while paper we had saints and scroungers. I was asked to go on two program one in Wales was Week in Week out, but it was decided I was just to disabled, so I went onto the program as the person they stated was disabled and I was the saint.

Is this a case of the BBC going out of its way to endorse the government or just the fact that news coverage is just plain bad.
One of the reasons may be that many of the key presenters of political news have been previously active in the Tory party but I think that is only part of the issue. I think the main issue is that news information is presented in a way that no overall pattern or continuity can be gleaned. As a result, the daily dose is just a scattergun of decontextualised and disparate stories.Moreover the more complex an issue ,even if its a crucial one, the less its likely to figure on mainstream TV. This in itself becomes an opinion former. If you cant place the occurrence of events into some coherent pattern they become just a backdrop to ones life. The only things that will contour political and social outlook ends up being down to personal experience, which is why Maggie and Gideon have such success likening the British economy with that of a household budget,which as everyone knows is the diametrically opposite.

Interestingly, some of the economic and political issues are considered in greater depth and are available on the BBC website. For the passive viewer ,however, who relies only on the TV or an occasional newspaper I think whats happening in the world is probably completely baffling.

If people think its bad for politics, consider the total lack of mainstream news relating to crop failure,global warming and the inevitable deaths of billions on the planet as the planets temperature begins to uncontrollably run away. I have seen credible reports of a 6 degree rise by the end of this century but other than the possibility of an article on breakfast TV about booming sales in home air conditioning no reference I doubt will ever be made to the end of civilization as we know it.

the point is that when Stratton “broke” the story, it wasn’t governemnt policy – it was an attempt by Osborne to bounce the coalition into dole cuts. But Stratton did not present it as such, rather she covered the proposed cuts story as if it was some kind of economic necessity backed by political consensus (when it was neither)
as I wrote at the time:-
“Properly speaking, these aren’t government plans at all yet – more of an extended PR campaign for grinding the poor, run for the Tories by BBC Newsnight’s Allegra Stratton.
The proposal to first freeze unemployment benefit for two years, then permanently break the benefit-inflation link, is not in any manifesto.
It seems even Employment Secretary Iain Duncan Smith isn’t in favour.
But Osborne’s team wants to try the idea out and bounce the government into the cuts.
Stratton – the go-to reporter for attacking the poor – obliged with breathless propaganda for the plan.
She talked excitedly about ‘savings,’ without interviewing a single unemployed person about which meals they would skip. ”

In the picture chosen to illustrate the OP, neither young woman appears to suffering from “the cuts” or even poverty. And the one on the right hardly needs a square meal…

As for the BBC, I think they broadly try very hard to be impartial and balanced; but they do have blindspots with current governments, with the EU, etc.

As a more general point, there is no value-neutral standpoint from which to view human affairs, only a plethora of value-laden standpoints. But the fact that a whole mountain can be seen only from an infinity of viewpoints does not mean that the mountain does not exist objectively. The truth is out there, but we need to look at it from many perspectives.

In recent decades, governments have taken care to appoint chairmen of the BBC trust or management board who are sympathetic to the government’s POV.

This is probably a downstream consequence of a famous bust-up in 1956 when Eden as PM wanted the BBC to refuse to allow Gaitskell, the Labour leader, to broadcast criticism of the government’s invasion of Suez in collaboration with France.

In the event, the BBC allowed Gaitskell to go ahead and broadcast his say, correctly so IMO. In due course, President Eisenhower pulled the plug on the Suez invasion by threatening to stop the US Federal Reserve Bank from supporting the Pound in the foreign exchange markets. Britain’s government really had no option but to cave in. Within a few months, Eden retired on health grounds. This was Britain’s last serious and sorry fling at Imperialism.

25: “So do you believe that editorial content is controlled right from the top because although Management Boards may change the news staff probably churn less rapidly?”

Do you recall the hiatus in April 2003 when Andrew Gilligan, interviewed by John Humphrys for the BBC Today programme, said the government had “sexed up” its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction?

No only was Gilligan forced to resign his job at the BBC, but not long after Greg Dyke, the BBC director general, was forced out as well.

No WMD were found in Iraq after the invasion by the UN inspectors. Dr Brian Jones was head of the branch in the Defence Intelligence Service tasked to assess incoming intelligence relating to weapons of mass destruction at the time of the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.

He submitted a letter of 8 July 2003 to the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly which included this passage:

“Your records will show that as [blanked out] and probably the most senior and experienced intelligence community official working on ‘WMD,’ I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessment for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002, that I was moved to write formally to your predecessor, Tony Crag, recording and explaining my reservations.”

In the discrete language of the civil service, Dr Jones disowned responsibility for the claims made in the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD published for a special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002.

In other words, Andrew Gilligan had been telling the truth when he said the government had sexed up the claims it made about Iraq’s WMD.

You`re clueless! The debate is not about whether the BBC is biased towards Labour or Conservative, but whether there is bias towards the 1% or the 99%. We have a pro-cuts consensus across all 3 main parties which is a consensus of the 1% in their wish to attack the 99% with vicious cuts. This is called Neo-liberalism, FYI.
In 1974 the Times Economics Editor, Peter Jay, claimed that “Governments depending on consent cannot suspend the full employment commitment”. Jay had reckoned without the effect of mainstream media who have “manufactured consent” to mass unemployment. The BBC can hide the truth about unemployment on a few of its web pages – like the one I mentioned in comment number 14 – but its broadcasts, which reach far more people, stick to the agenda of demonising the unemployed.
I`m still waiting for the BBC to report the way in which mass unemployment was reintroduced in the 1970s, a document on the Margaret Thatcher foundation website has some very revealing info on it.http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/26759A20DBD145F0A6BB3A84470BDFAA.pdf
The July 1975 Interim Report from the “Economic Reconstruction Group” chaired by Geoffrey Howe says the following about the consequences of pursuing Milton Friedman`s proposals for “curing” inflation.
“The Group tended to the view that there would be several serious problems involved in this course of action. A very high level of unemployment would probably be required for four or five years. In the private sector capital expenditure, confidence and growth would be damaged. The need to sustain the policy throughout the life of a parliament would raise obvious political difficulties.”
As we know, Geoffrey Howe, would become Thatcher`s first Chancellor and these “serious problems” would be inflicted on the UK economy at the first opportunity. The full story can be found here:http://thetruthaboutunemployment.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/the-reintroduction-of-mass-unemployment-in-the-1970s-80s/

Yes, in a situation like this it is always the best policy to shoot the messenger. Never mind that the Right have targeted the BBC for the last thirty years for failing to be as biased as them, without anyone mounting a defence. Never mind that we have failed to tackle the outrageous lies of the Right with regard to benefit claimants and expect the public to decipher the facts from fiction. Yes, the BBC are all too aware that broadcasting anything other than conventional wisdom will leave them open to charge of ‘bias’. However, this is what the Left have campaigned for, we campaigned for the Right to set the adgenda with regard to what the BBC should report and now the BBC are unable to tell the truth, so what is the problem?

Last week’s ‘moral maze’ was a case in point. Portillio and another scumbag were on and attacking the BBC’s ‘bias’ with regard to a whole list of things. Bizarrely, Portillio used the Climate Change debate as an example of that ‘bias’; suggesting that the BBC’s ‘position’ on climate change was evidence that they accepted the scientific consensus on Climate Change. No one on the programme challenged him on that, no one had the courage to point out it is the BBC’s job to broadcast the facts and not what the Right would actually want the truth to be. No, Tory boy was speaking and therefore the rest of us were forelock tugging our way through that speech. An unchallenged Portillio was allowed to get away with implying that there was another side to the Climate Change debate, another side that the BBC are refusing to show.

You know what, Sarah? Perhaps if the Left spent as much time challenging the Right a bit more aggressively on these issues as they do the BBC, perhaps these distortions wouldn’t gain as much traction?

On a general note, I’d say that the reason that the right seem to be dominating the media isn’t anything to do with failings n the BBC, its more the failings in any proper opposition at an ideological level.

You have to ask yourself, if Portillo was able to trash the idea of global warming, why wasn’t there anybody on the same panel that could’ve put a few rational arguments together to have defeated him. I’d suggest that global warming is a bit of a technical issue which not many people are able to defend. Notwithstanding, the moral maze has always been occupied by tossers. that I guess is by the by!

In 1953 the BBC was involved in overthrowing Iran`s democracy, and to its credit, on 22nd August 2005 at 8.00pm the BBC broadcast a programme on Radio 4 entitled “A Very British Coup” which detailed how the BBC World Service was used to “broadcast the very code word that was to spark revolution”. The programme can still be downloaded from the BBC`s website at this page:

“”Document” reveals the true extent of Britain ‘s involvement in the coup of 1953 which toppled Iran ‘s democratically elected government and replaced it with the tyranny of the Shah.

Iran had just nationalised the very oil fields that had powered Britain through two world wars. Downing Street wanted them back. London paid Iranian agents to sow seeds of dissent in Tehran. Then, to win American support for a coup, the men from the Ministry fanned fears of a Russian invasion.

Even the BBC was used to spearhead Britain’s propaganda campaign. In fact, Auntie agreed to broadcast the very code word that was to spark revolution. Around a decade ago the American government apologised for its role in the coup. Yet despite current concerns over oil scandals, regime change and the cost of meddling in Middle East politics – Britain has remained silent.”

30: “Moreover that was an example of where editorial control was not exercised at the top only culpability.”

With Andrew Gilligan and Greg Dyke, the BBC diector general, losing their jobs in 2003, the BBC soon took that lesson to heart. The BBC took care to only quote other politicians on how robust was the evidence for Iraq’s WMD. BBC reporters and commentators stayed schtum.

Come June 2003 and the BBC reported on Blair at the G8 Conference in Evian:

Tony Blair has rejected calls for an official inquiry into the government’s claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, Mr Blair said he stood “100%” by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq’s alleged weapons programmes.

“Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false,” he said.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955036.stm

It was such a nice touch having the Union Jack flyng there in the background as a halo around Blair’s head.

With Andrew Gilligan and Greg Dyke, the BBC diector general, losing their jobs in 2003, the BBC soon took that lesson to heart. The BBC took care to only quote other politicians on how robust was the evidence for Iraq’s WMD. BBC reporters and commentators stayed schtum.

Which only goes to show that other journalists wanted to protect there own jobs.

I think Job Seeker’s references hit the nail on the head.
Maybe there is official control over the BBC but I rather suspect because they all come from the same class its all done on a nod and a wink. One thing is for sure, that once tainted, the BBC can never again be trusted.

My point was that LibCon did a hatchet job on Newsnight for misrepresenting her – then published it under a heading which made it look like she was a ‘scrounger’.

That’s because technically she is a scrounger. She relies on the tax payer to fork out on a flat which she probably got because she had a kid.(there are millions of them doing it ,and subletting too!) Is that right? and if it is what’s to stop me having kids I cant afford?

The BBC reflects cultural and political trends-also reflected in political parties – that only the interests of the City and the wealthy are of interestin economic news each day. Tony Benn made trhis point in The Listener in June 1988.

Also, welfareis too complicated for many people to understand, let alone visualise in practiceand journalists who increasingly onlyunderstand the world through the internet have little contact with people outside the media bubble and almost never with welfare claimants.
Most daily ‘Financial analysis’ is confined to matters concerning a very narrow section of financiers and shareholders .Welfare benefits are not covered in any coherent way,despite the fact that around a third ofthe population receives some kind of benefit or other – much paid for through years of national insurance contributions. There is no obvious understanding of the fact that housing benefit (the second biggest welfare payment after old age pensions) is a welfare state for landlords since the removal of rent control and much of the money flows overseas to ex-patriates who do not pay tax inthe UK.

For a recent example of the BCC -and other media – and their lack of awareness on welfare issues, look at the coverage of the debate in the House of Lords on amendments to the Local Government Finance (16.10.12) which involve a matter which will have huge impact on those on benefits and low incomes on April 1st 2013.

The BBC coverage has been appalling.John Humphrey’s programme was a fact free exercise in propaganda.Deliberate parrotting of the Government line is endemic.All discussions and coverage by those charged with informing the public do the following(amongst many more “mistakes”).
1.Conflate DLA/ESA into the non existent disability benefit
2.Never state that “out of work benefits” means in many cases anything but.
3.Encourage the view and stir the populace as regards the “unfairness” of uprating of benefits vis a vis wage rises;conveniently forgetting that most benefits are received by those who work or are under no obligation to work
4.Regularly stated that the cap did not impact on the disabled but 5,000 receivers of CA (conveniently classed as others at best) render that an absurdity.etc etc